New music // 5 minutes with… Interviews // What's on? A fortnight in new music // New music in video

February 7, 2018

Lazy Day – ‘Weird Cool’ – A bold slice of melancholic dream pop

The internet may be awash with a never-ending glut of bedroom-pop projects but few emerge with such striking songwriting and emotional resonance as Tilly Scantlebury’s Lazy Day. Having already earned many plaudits for her songwriting it seems that Tilly is about to emerge from her bedroom pop slumber to take her rightful place as the enigmatic leader of a fully-fledged rock band.

2017’s accomplished mini-album Ribbons aligned Lazy Day with such fellow melancholy dream pop merchants as Jay Som, Frankie Cosmos and Fazerdaze. Like their namesake suggests, Lazy Day’s songs often have a hypnogogic and hazy quality. But, much like Japanese Breakfast’s recent albums have achieved, new single Weird Cool cuts through the haze and recruits some canny dynamics to brilliant effect.

Released on limited flexi-disc via the consistently excellent Art Is Hard label, Weird Cool is a dramatic statement of intent that far surpasses anything the band has released thus far. It’s bigger and bolder, exuding a new confidence in songwriting and arrangement whilst boasting a pop sheen that instantly grabs you and refuses to let go. What’s more, the band showcase a new-found maturity that manages to maintain the playful aspect which Lazy Day have so effortlessly emanated from previous releases.

Opening to a single reverb-laden strum of her guitar coupled with a passage of breathy vocals, the track instantly draws the listener in with a teasing twenty seconds of intimacy before the rest of the band kicks in with a sultry groove. Tilly’s vocal delivery expertly channels the anxiety inherent in her lyrics which deal with the looming doubts over what seems to be a strong relationship. Her voice is hyperactive and clearly riddled with tumult and yet she manages never to delve into melodrama.

Weird Cool is the sound of a band in the ascendancy. You can catch them on their brief headline tour, which includes a night at Hackney’s MOTH Club, before they head out in support of Alex Lahey.